Where Departed Huskies Stand in Transfer Portal

A year ago, the University of Washington football roster was gutted within days of the Huskies playing for the CFP national championship against Michigan.

Once coach Kalen DeBoer abruptly left for a new job at Alabama, a strove of promising players with remaining eligibility fled the scene, not interested in taking part in a certain rebuild in Montlake.

What stood to be a fairly competitive 2024 UW team following that attempted title run was reduced to a complete do-over for new coach Jedd Fisch.

Now 12 months later -- with 27 Huskies steadily packing up and leaving town and reaching for portal opportunities elsewhere -- the program has gone through a more methodical reset rather than a second blood-letting of personnel.

Just three full-time UW starters in cornerback Thaddeus Dixon (undecided), nickelback Jordan Shaw (Texas A&M) and offensive guard Gaard Memmelaar (UCF) have departed, though Dixon and Memmelaar were probably going to be hard-pressed to retain their first-team assignments with the Huskies looking to greatly upgrade those positions.

However, the player whose exit affected Fisch's program the most, based on his potential, was linebacker Khmori House, who started five games as a freshman, showed himself to be an immediate playmaker and stood to have the Husky defense built around him going forward.

Instead, Bill Belichick -- one-time UW football consultant and now Montlake scavenger hunter -- will welcome House's considerable talents to his new gig at North Carolina, along with former Husky wide receiver Jason Robinson Jr., plus former defensive coordinator Steve Belichick, who actually didn't last 12 months on the job in Seattle.

(Editor's note: some of us in the media wagered on how long young Belichick might be employed by the UW, and, yes I won with a short-timer forecast).

Clearly the Huskies put some talented players in the portal this time, as well, with 16 so far signing or committing to new schools.

Cornerback has produced the most UW roster change with four at this position entering the portal in Darren Barkins, Curley Reed, Elijah Jackson and Dixon.

Dixon started 12 of the 13 Husky games this past season and was an All-Big Ten honorable-mention selection, yet from his social-media posts he seems to have indicated the Huskies have moved on from him as their starting cornerback, especially after picking up Arizona transfer Tacario Davis, who was a second-team All-Big 12 choice and a higher-rated player at corner.

Jackson, of course, was a 15-game cornerback starter for the national runner-up team who lost his job to Dixon this past season and will play next season for TCU and former UW corners coach Julius "Juice" Brown.

Barkins, a one-time Oregon transfer, couldn't stay healthy in two seasons with the Huskies. Reed, coming off a serious Louisiana high school kneee injury, couldn't make any depth-chart inroads and returned to his home state.

Besides Dixon, well-utilized former Huskies still seeking new teams are wide receiver Keith Reynolds and safety Peyton Waters, who each played in all 12 regular-season games -- while Reynolds, unlike Waters, skipped the Sun Bowl -- and both have three seasons of eligibility remaining.